1. Field to which the invention relates
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument with an acoustic signal generator circuit for producing electrical acoustic signals whose frequency spectrum and envelope curve respectively determine the acoustic parameters, pitch and timbre and, respectively, the change in amplitude with time and accordingly the volume, attack and decay phenomena and also quasi stationary behavior (for example vibrator) of the corresponding sound. There is a manually actuated control device for influencing at least one part of the acoustic parameters.
2. Proposals in prior applications
Electronic musical instruments of the above mentioned type are described in U.S. patent applications 674,830 and 712,339. In the case of these previously proposed instruments it is possible to control for example the part, controlling the pitch, of the frequency spectrum by means of a keyboard or other key arrangement and the envelope curve of the acoustic signals can be controlled by a pneumatic-electrical transducer ("blow transducer"), which supplies an output signal which is substantially proportional to the speed of flow of the air current produced by the player. The part, determining the timbre, of the frequency spectrum can be determined by filter circuits and other frequency determining members in the acoustic signal generator circuit and can be varied by a register so that the sounds of various different conventional music instruments can be imitated.
The music instruments proposed in the above mentioned patent applications are played in a manner similar to conventional wind instruments and more particularly reed instruments. Furthermore the U.S. patent application 312,080 describes an electronic musical instrument which can be played in a manner similar to a conventional string instrument with a bow.